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Judgment Day (2008)
Judgment Day (2008) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It took place on May 18, 2008, at the Qwest Center Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska. It was the tenth annual Judgment Day event and starred wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands. The show's seven matches showcased prominent WWE wrestlers, who acted out the franchise's stories in and out of the ring. The main event featured Raw wrestlers in a Steel Cage match, a match in a ring surrounded by four walls of mesh metal. In this match, WWE Champion Triple H defeated Randy Orton to retain his title. In SmackDown's main match, The Undertaker defeated Edge by countout, but did not win the vacant World Heavyweight Championship because in WWE, a championship cannot change hands via countout or disqualification. While in ECW's prime match, WWE Tag Team Champions John Morrison and The Miz defeated ECW Champion Kane and CM Punk to retain the titles. From the six scheduled bouts on the undercard, two received less promotion than the others; these bouts included in two respective singles matches, Shawn Michaels defeating Chris Jericho and John Cena defeating John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL). Judgment Day received 252,000 pay-per-view buys, and was instrumental in helping WWE increase its pay-per-view revenue by $21.9 million compared to the previous year. The professional wrestling section of the Canadian Online Explorer website rated the entire event 6 out of 10, higher than the 2007 event, which was marked "as an average show". Storylines Judgment Day provided the culmination of various scripted plots and storylines. A month before the event, several professional wrestling matches and scripted plots were played out on WWE programming (Raw, Friday Night SmackDown!, and ECW on Sci Fi) to create feuds between various wrestlers, casting them as villains and heroes. Raw, SmackDown, and ECW were also the names of WWE's televised brands – a storyline division in which WWE assigned its employees to a specific program, thus each brand promoted distinct matches. The main event scripted into Judgment Day on the Raw brand featured WWE Champion Triple H defending the title against Randy Orton in a match where the ring was surrounded by walls of steel, dubbed as a Steel cage match. The buildup to the match began after Backlash, WWE's previous pay-per-view event, where Triple H last eliminated Orton in a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match, also involving John Cena and John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL), to win the WWE Championship. The following night on an episode of Raw, one of WWE's primary television programs, authority figure William Regal, a portrayed match maker and rules enforcer, stopped a title match between Orton and Triple H, and booked the two in a Steel cage match at Judgment Day for the WWE Championship. One of the featured preliminary matches on the SmackDown brand was between The Undertaker and Edge for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship. At Backlash, the Undertaker defeated Edge to retain the title by forcing him to submit to the gogoplata, a chokehold move that causes opponents to spit blood (scripted) from their mouths. On the May 2 episode of SmackDown, authority figure Vickie Guerrero stripped the title from the Undertaker, after claiming the gogoplata was an illegal submission hold and she did it to protect the other wrestlers. The following week, Guerrero booked Undertaker in a match for the vacant title at Judgment Day against Edge, who last eliminated Batista in a battle royal, an elimination style match where the last person in the ring is the winner, to become the number one contender. Another featured preliminary match involved Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho in a singles match. At Backlash, Michaels defeated Batista (with Jericho as the special guest referee) in an Inter-promotional match. During the match, Michaels countered a Batista Bomb attempt, a powerbomb move in which the wrestler drops into a sitting position as they slam their opponent down to the mat, and appeared to have legitimately injured his left knee. On the April 28 episode of Raw, Jericho claimed that Michaels faked his knee injury to allow him to defeat Batista at Backlash, a claim that Michaels denied. The following week, it was announced that Jericho would face Michaels in a singles match at Judgment Day. On the May 12 episode of Raw, Jericho offered his apologies to Michaels for accusing him of feigning an injury, as well as giving Michaels the opportunity to back out of their match. Michaels revealed that he did indeed fake his knee injury. Four days later, on the May 16 episode of SmackDown, Batista commented that he would hurt Michaels, scripted into the storyline, for faking his injury. One more rivalry from the Raw brand was between John Cena and JBL. In the Fatal Four-Way Elimination match at Backlash, Cena eliminated JBL by making him submit to the STFU, a move in which the wrestler wraps his arm around the neck of the opponent in a sleeper hold instead of pulling back on the head of the opponent.On the April 28 episode of Raw, JBL challenged Cena to a singles match at Judgment Day, which was made official on WWE's website. The Divas rivalry from the Raw brand was between Mickie James, Beth Phoenix, and Melina over James' WWE Women's Championship. It was on the April 14 edition of Raw that James defeated Phoenix to win her fourth Women's Championship. Phoenix received her title rematch on the May 5 edition of Raw, but she was defeated after Melina accidentally struck Phoenix with her boot. The following week on Raw, Phoenix and Melina were defeated by James and Maria after Phoenix abandoned Melina due to being accidentally knocked off the ring apron by her partner. Melina would turn face after the match due to being attacked by Phoenix in a backstage segment. Aftermath The next night on Raw, William Regal announced that the episode's main event would be a tag team match pitting Triple H and John Cena against Randy Orton and JBL, in which if Orton and JBL were to win, Regal stated that they could choose any kind of extreme singles rematches against Triple H and John Cena at WWE's next pay-per-view event, "One Night Stand", and creating the same stipulation that if Triple H and Cena were to win, they would face each other for the WWE Championship in an extreme match of William Regal's choosing. Orton and JBL won the match. Orton chose the Last Man Standing Match. JBL picked a First Blood match, in which to win a wrestler has to make his opponent bleed, against Cena. At One Night Stand, both men lost in their rematches. During the event, Orton legitimately broke his collarbone in his match with Triple H. The storyline between Shawn Michaels and Batista continued, as Batista defeated Chris Jericho to earn the right to face Michaels in a Stretcher match, a match where the objective is to place the opponent on a stretcher at ringside and move it across a line located on the entrance ramp, at One Night Stand. At the event, Batista defeated Michaels in the match, thus ending their rivalry. At One Night Stand, The Big Show defeated CM Punk, Chavo Guerrero, Tommy Dreamer and John Morrison in a five-man Singapore Cane match to earn an ECW Championship match against Kane at Night of Champions. During the supplemental draft, a mock sports draft lottery in which wrestlers switched program drafted to the ECW brand. It was announced on WWE's official website that Henry would be added to the title match, making it a Triple Threat match. At Night of Champions, Henry defeated Kane and Big Show to win the ECW Championship. Henry, however, was booked to lose the title to Matt Hardy at Unforgiven in September. The Undertaker and Edge continued their feud over the next several weeks. Though, a predicament insured on the May 23 episode of SmackDown, when Vickie Guerrero announced that The Undertaker would face Edge once more for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match (TLC) at One Night Stand with the stipulation that if The Undertaker were to lose, he would be forced to leave the WWE. At the June event, Edge defeated The Undertaker with the help of his accomplices, Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder, in the TLC match to win the vacant World title and The Undertaker was forced to leave the company, written into the storyline. On the July 25 episode of SmackDown, Guerrero reinstated The Undertaker, after learning of Edge's infidelity with their wedding planner, Guerrero and Edge were in a scripted relationship, and in retaliation she scheduled The Undertaker and Edge in a Hell in a Cell match, a ring surrounded by a steel structure of metal, at SummerSlam. At SummerSlam, The Undertaker defeated Edge. Results Other on-screen personnel See also * List of WWE pay-per-view events * Judgement Day Category:Judgment Day Category:World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view events Category:2008 Pay-Per-View Events